Saturday, June 16, 2007

Peace On A Presents: Sasha Steensen & Charles Valle*


Peace On A

presents

Sasha Steensen & Charles Valle

Tuesday, June 12th 2007 8PM
BYOB & recommended donation: $5

hosted by Thom Donovan at:

166 Avenue A, Apartment #2
New York, NY 10009

about the readers:

Sasha Steensen is the author of *A Magic Book* (Fence Books) and *correspondence* (with Gordon Hadfield, Handwritten Press). Her new manuscript, *The Method*, is forthcoming from Fence Books. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Aufgabe, Denver Quarterly, Shiny, Shearsman, and the anthology *Not For Mothers Only: Contemporary Poems on Child-Getting and Child-Rearing* (Fence Books). She is one of the poetry editors of Colorado Review and a co-editor of Bonfire Press. She teaches Creative Writing at Colorado State University.

THIS PLAIN PLACE

Nothing has happened in this place
and it happened forever
until recently.
It was forever happening
amid Method's fluctuating vision.
He heard rustling in the bushes,
the bandicoot poking around in its pouch,
to pull finally nothing
out.

He understood the animal's sorrow
to find plainly and without denial
emptiness where a relation ought to be
a deep and majestic blue
into which one carefully
places
a heart,
plainly
steps back,
places
a body around
a heart,
steps back
into a past place where
only the monks,
deathly afraid of nothing,
turn the deaf
away.


Charles Valle works in educational publishing. His works have appeared in various literary journals-- most recently,2ndavepoetry.com. He sleeps, spins records, and eats pupusas in Brooklyn.

SKEIN

She will read your arterial
curves pressed flat—gathered in a box,

she will imagine a language
for your seasons—she, who only

translates fall as the ending
of monsoons—she will create

your branch, your roots digging down…

What do you say to someone

who cannot name new worlds?

find the green one with five fingers on fire


Peace On A is an events series devoted to emergent work by writers, artists, performers and scholars. Past presenters at Peace on A include Alan Gilbert, E.Tracy Grinnell, Cathy Park Hong, Paolo Javier, Robert Kocik, Wayne Koestenbaum, Douglas Martin, Eléna Rivera, David Levi Strauss, Andrew Levy, Kyle Schlesinger, & Jonathan Skinner. Scroll down Wild Horses of Fire weblog(whof.blogspot.com) for back advertisements, introductions and reading selections.

“demonstrations are ‘the eyes of the mind’”
~ Gilles Deleuze quoting Baruch Spinoza

*the above image is of Anton Van Dalen's "Migratory Dwelling".

Turning

I was when I turned when you

Turned from me believing nothing else

True a silence of all thoughts on

Your lips the truer test of which

Is for every refusal.

Despairing

~ after Kafka

All hell is hearing
Especially the way the head
Is not so alienated
That it can't diasppear

Her hand went here and
So it was bound made
Us and the gaze it was
Something different
Than all despair touched.

Friday, June 15, 2007

For Felt Necessity

Her face stuck like
A fact to the wall

Of that the wind
The televised light

Picks up and we are
Hard sometimes the

Facts of light the
Facts just the facts

Divide me time as
If I am memory

Perfumed so there
Or enfolded to

The primitive there is
What is said we are

Only this so don't
Overproduce you are

Only as good as what
Remembers you only

Acts against this
Gravity are god.